


Captain America gets Pissed

by AnonEhouse



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bed-Wetting, Coma, Crack Treated Seriously, Humor, M/M, Mild Kink, Pee, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:51:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard finds Steve's frozen body soon after the war ends. Steve is alive, but not ready to wake up. Howard doesn't give up on Steve. He's sure he'll find some way to rouse him.</p><p>And he does. Finds several ways actually. And discovers that Steve is just as good at rousing Howard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain America gets Pissed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blakefancier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blakefancier/gifts).



> This is sorta a belated bday present to my Partner in Crime. Long may she wave.

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

Howard didn't believe in magic, or in hunches, but when a drop of coffee spilled onto the navigation chart into the shape of a five-pointed star... well, one place was as good as another, wasn't it? The coffee splotch location was just barely within the projected range of the deep currents leading from where they'd discovered the Tesseract a few months ago. 

That had been the week before the war ended. He remembered the day because the crew were celebrating and useless. Also because it didn't seem fair that Cap had died without knowing we'd won. He'd drunk a little much, and got a little too maudlin. It had been embarrassing.

When the divers reported they'd found Cap, stuck to the underside of an iceberg, Howard still didn't believe in magic, or in hunches. He was a genius, and his subconscious was probably even smarter than the rest of his brain, so he must have done calculations without realizing it. And the star drop didn't look that much like a star after a few minutes, probably hadn't looked that much like it to begin. Yeah, there were perfectly logical explanations for everything.

***

But sometimes you really had to look for the explanations. "He's alive?" Howard had to ask the ship's doctor to repeat himself. "But... he's been drowned and frozen for months!"

The doctor nodded. "Well, alive might be stretching a point. As far as I can tell, with the limited equipment I have, there's been no tissue damage. Not even frostbite. No deterioration of the extremities or collapse of the circulatory system. He's on a ventilator and IV. A shot of adrenalin got his heart going and it's kept a steady rhythm on its own. There's no reason to think his condition is unstable."

"But he's not breathing on his own and he's not waking up. How long... how long could he stay like this?"

"The situation is unprecedented, but my guess is that he could be maintained in this state indefinitely."

"The rest of his life?" Howard couldn't imagine anyone wanting that, and especially not Steve Rogers. "He'd hate that." Howard swallowed hard. "I thought we'd be bringing him back to lay him to rest, not... not this."

"Unless his family gives permission to cease efforts, I'm morally obligated to do everything I can to keep him alive. Once I have him at a proper facility, there are treatments that might prove effective to awaken him." The doctor didn't sound very confident. 

Howard nodded. "He hasn't got any family. His unit... his friends... we were the closest... oh, god. I've got to call Peggy. Do what you can for Steve."

***

Howard was sitting in Steve's room, drinking coffee and listening to the news on the radio when Peggy arrived. It had taken a while for her to get leave; apparently Steve's condition confused the paper-pushers; she wouldn't be attending a funeral or going to a wedding. Not that Howard knew they'd been planning to marry after the war. Maybe not. He knew they had something.

He stood up when he heard the door open. Peggy looked past him to Steve, lying like a big, beautifully detailed doll on the perfectly white, perfectly smooth sheets. The ventilator clacked and hissed; his chest rose and fell. She dropped her duffel bag on the floor and went over to stand by Steve, looking down at him. "Howard," she said. "How is he?"

"Peggy. He... he'll be all right."

Peggy turned on him, face fierce, and hands clenched. "Don't tell me what you think I want to hear, Howard. Tell me the truth."

"I don't... they've tried drugs, electroshock, induced a fever, even tried making him sick. He just... stays the same. No one really knows how Erskine's serum works, but the best guess is that it tries to maintain his body's condition, and... it's been re-set to ... this."

"So. What made him Captain America is keeping him in a coma." Peggy's hands rose, and then fell back at her sides. "He's a corpse, Howard. A warm, breathing corpse."

"No! He's alive. They say there's nothing wrong with him, he just won't wake up. We'll... we'll find a way."

"This isn't a fairy tale, Howard! You think you can invent a solution, fix everything, come out with a happy ending if only you don't give up." Peggy was crying now, silent tears running down her face. She ignored them as she spoke. "I've been here before. I've waited, and broken my heart hoping. Steve's dead. I've come here to say goodbye."

"He loved you."

"He loved the idea of being in love. So did I. It was something bright and clean and removed from the filth of war. But it's over, and I've got to move on. Steve's... he's not the first one I've lost. I know you must think I'm hard-hearted."

"No. No, you're not that. You're a very strong person, Peggy, and more practical than I am." Howard paused. "Will you at least kiss him goodbye?"

"I can't." Peggy shook her head. "I really came to see you, Howard. To tell you to let him go. People have been talking about your obsession."

"And do you think I care what people say?" Howard caught himself, and lowered his voice. "I know you mean well, Peggy, but I don't know how to surrender."

"It's a hard lesson. I'd hoped to let you learn by my example." Peggy went over to Howard and kissed him on the cheek. "Goodbye, Howard."

***

The radio played. Every day Howard switched to a different station, on the principle that different stimuli might do... _something_... make Steve react, even a little. Nurses came and went, moving Steve slightly, fluffing his pillow, doing other, more intimate, things. At first they'd kicked Howard out of the room, but after a while they stopped bothering. He found a man able to take up the slack at Stark Industries so Howard could spend more time with Steve. Obadiah Stane had drive, determination, and a love of fine whiskey, so Howard figured the board couldn't tell the difference between him and Howard. Maybe if they liked Obie enough they'd stop nagging Howard to ditch Steve. Everyone wanted him to just write Steve off, like a failed experiment. Maybe Howard could have done it if Steve hadn't been so _close_ , just... he only needed some little spark, something. If Howard hadn't been there to keep the doctors interested and the bills paid, he was fairly sure they'd have shuffled Steve off to a long-term facility for warehousing the week after Howard brought him home.

The hospital staff were careful, efficient, and brisk. To most of them Steve was just another task. One notable exception was a young girl who wore a red and white striped pinafore. She always said a few kind words to Howard and Steve when she passed the room. She was a volunteer, part of an experiment to relieve trained nurses of duties that didn't require medical knowledge. Mostly he saw her in the hallways, pushing a cart with meals, but she'd stop in from time to time to bring Howard a cup of coffee. 

One day she looked at Steve and smiled. "Captain Rogers makes me think of Sleeping Beauty. I'd like to kiss him to see if he'd wake up." Her hands went up to cover her mouth. "Oh! Please, don't tell the nurse I said that, Mr. Stark. We're supposed to be very professional, and that's not at all professional."

Howard laughed. "My lips are sealed, Daisy."

The girl grinned and took Howard's empty mug. "Thank you, Mr. Stark."

After she left, Howard went over to Steve. "Peggy said I believed in fairy tales and happy endings." Howard glanced back at the door. It was open, but there wasn't anyone in sight. And really, Howard didn't care. He leaned over the bed. "Peggy gave me this for you." The ventilator was in the way, but hey, Howard Stark could always find a way to kiss. Steve's lips were warm, and soft, and rather dry. They clung to his for a moment as he pulled away. "Steve?" Howard felt a rush of optimism, but it faded while the ventilator clicked and whirred. Howard sighed. "It's more fun if you cooperate."

***

A week later Howard had tried all the old wives' tales he could think of, even smuggling in a puppy to lick Steve's face. That had got him kicked out. They told him not to come back, and really, he didn't know that he cared to fight them. He wasn't doing Steve any good. 

He went to his rented room and stared at Steve's uniform, hanging in the closet and getting dusty. He frowned and picked up the shield to polish it with his sleeve. It hummed softly, warm and light under his hands like a living thing. Hell, it was practically an extension of Steve's arms... it was... he rubbed it harder, making the hum stronger. "You miss him, don't you?" Yeah, ok, talking to inanimate objects, that's nuts. "Don't answer that, and we'll be fine."

Howard ordered a bottle from room service, and toasted the shield. Sometime in the small hours of the morning, he decided that the shield deserved a chance to say goodbye to Steve.

***

He draped the chenille cover from his hotel bed over the shield before going out to his car. "Perfect! No one will recognize you." The road wobbled a bit, but there were few other drivers around, and hey, Howard had learned how to handle driving in London black-outs, so this was no problem. When he got to the hospital, he cleverly parked in a different place than usual, and really, no one needed that many bushes around a hospital.

Howard had come to know the hospital layout really, really well. The emergency exits were normally one-way doors, but a bit of fiddling with a piece of wire he happened to have in his pocket got them open. It was always quieter in the night shift, and Howard had learned a thing or two about stealth from the Howling Commandoes. Admittedly there was that one laundry cart that almost tipped over, but the cart was a road hog, and anyway, his catlike reflexes caught it in time. He cleverly waited until the floor nurse was called away from her desk before he strode triumphantly, on a _deliberate_ zig-zag course, into Steve's room.

"Hey, Steve, I brought your old buddy to see you." Howard started to pull the chenille off the shield, but his grip slipped, so he tightened his fingers more. Only problem was that he forgot how light and smooth the shield was. It slipped more, he twisted to try to grab the chenille and the shield, and he tripped over... well, there must have been SOMETHING there, and his whole body twisted like a discus thrower. Howard had a brief moment to admire his flexibility and consider trying out for the Olympics before the shield shot out from his hand, flew across the room, ricocheted off three walls (being a genius, Howard was flat on his back safely out of the way) and then smashed into the ventilator hose, chopping it neatly in two.

It was really, really noisy. And Steve... his chest went down, and it didn't come up again.

"God, no!" Howard barely got to his feet before a huge male nurse picked him up and shoved him out of the way of a herd, flock, bevy? whatever you call a group of nurses and doctors. A cadre? Care-Dre? Howard's idiot genius mind raced as he stood there, shaking, and listening to them with their incomprehensible medical babbling running on almost loud enough to drown out the pounding of his heart. He'd killed Steve. He'd killed Captain America with his own fucking shield. Howard was going to hell. 

He couldn't see what was happening. The medicos were clustered around Steve like flies on a... no... Suddenly, as sudden as a bomb burst, the crowd scattered. Howard heard coughing, loud, rasping, rough noise and... there was Steve, sitting up, clutching the torn out respirator in one hand, shield in the other, and looking around, wild-eyed with panic.

"Steve!" Howard staggered forward. "Thank God." And then he embarrassed himself by vomiting on the floor. Fortunately he passed out immediately afterward.

***

"Erg," Howard said intelligently, but I defy anyone to wake up after having their stomach pumped, see Captain America gazing down at you with his mildly disapproving face on, and come out with something witty.

"Howard," Steve said, "What the heck has been going on?" Out of the kindness of his big heart, Steve handed Howard a glass of water and waited for his response. 

A little water helped. Not much, but a little. "Ah. The war is over." Howard paused. His head was a throbbing muddle of misery. "We won."

"That's good." From Steve's tone, Howard gathered that wasn't exactly news to him.

"We found you, and... you were in a coma. Something like that. I'm not a doctor."

"Yeah. I talked to the doctors. This isn't a veteran's hospital. Uncle Sam's not footing the bill, so how did I wind up here?" Yeah, Howard knew that Steve knew where the money came from.

"Hey, you saved New York City. I've got a house there, a really nice house. I like it. A lot." God, Howard's brain must have been pumped out with his stomach.

Steve's mouth twitched up into a small smile. "So, because you felt you owed me a house, you got me round-the-clock care at a top-flight hospital, and spent most of the past two months either harassing the doctors or sitting here, watching me breathe?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds strange. But it made perfect sense at the time." Howard couldn't stop looking at Steve, letting his eyes wander over the too-long hair, the pale complexion, the breadth of shoulders straining at a borrowed orderly's uniform, the faint bruise at the corner of his mouth where the ventilator had rested for so long, and most of all his eyes- open and intelligent and alive. "I missed seeing your eyes," he blurted. "Oh, god, ignore that, I'm still a little drunk."

"Huh." Steve sat on Howard's bed and looked at him. His expression was no longer disapproving, but Howard couldn't quite figure out what it was. "So you got drunk and decided to throw my shield around a hospital?"

"No. Not throw. I actually sort of... dropped it. With velocity. And woke you up."

Steve laughed. "Thanks." He got up. "Someone from the army is coming to talk to us. Seems they think we'd make a good team."

"What?" Howard's mind was taken up with the flex of Steve's abdominal muscles under the orderly's uniform. "The war's over."

"They want us to help with reconstruction, mending fences, building bridges... from what I gather, they're hoping you'll throw your money and influence around."

"And what would you be doing?"

Steve smiled. "Well, someone's got to carry the luggage." Steve returned to the bed and lowered his voice. "Howard. You were the only one who stayed by me. Even Peggy didn't do that. Was it really because you thought you owed me something from the past?"

Howard had to drink more water before he could answer. Softly he said, "No. It was... because I had hope for the future. I do that, you know. Imagine the future, and then work to bring it to life."

Steve was silent for a long moment, and then he nodded. "We need to talk in private, before the general arrives. Decide what we want to do together."

"You mean, decide together what we want to do."

"That, too." Steve picked up a bundle of clothes and dropped them on top of Howard. "Let's go."

"Yes, sir, Captain!" Howard was grinning so wide his jaw hurt.

***

"When is the general arriving?" Howard asked as he put the room keys down on the dresser.

Steve glanced around the room. There hadn't been much choice in hotels near the hospital, so while this was a reasonably adequate suite with a good size bed, it wasn't very classy. Honestly, chenille bedspreads? And the framed bland, badly colored, landscape print was screwed into the wall. Howard considered it a learning experience on how the other ninety percent lives. It was very clean, and room service knew how to deliver coffee while it was still hot, and had booze that was a step above rotgut, so he hadn't complained, at least not by his standards. "Tomorrow afternoon. Sometime after four." 

Howard looked around the room and began picking up scattered paper and drafting tools. He'd been living out of suitcases, and attempting to work on designs, and then he'd had his little binge, so disorganized was the kindest description he could give the room. And the bed was missing the duvet, which Howard really couldn't regret. He'd have them put it on his bill. 

"Howard." Steve put out his hand to press lightly against his chest when Howard passed him with a bundle of technical drawings for something that probably wouldn't be a flying car. "Stop. We need to talk."

"Sure. Right." Howard held the papers awkwardly, feeling in general awkward. "What exactly did the general... which general was it, anyway?"

"Eisenhower."

Howard blinked. "The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe? And you refer to him as 'someone from the army'?"

"Well, that's what he is. He's got political ambitions, but mostly he's a soldier, a man who wants to keep this country safe. I don't want to talk about General Eisenhower, Howard." Steve pushed a little. Howard stepped back in the direction of the bed. "I want to talk about us. About our future."

"Ah. We're going to Europe as unofficial ambassadors..." Howard lost his train of thought as Steve took the papers from his hands and dropped them onto the floor. "Steve? Steve, you're making a mess."

"Not yet, I'm not." Steve paused. "Tell me if I'm making a big mistake. We can go to Europe as friends." He put his hand on Howard's shoulder, and god, it was so big and so warm.

"Uh." Howard's brain was not in charge any longer. "Friends."

Steve's thumb made small circles on his collarbone. "Are you listening to me?"

"Ummm... sure. Friends. I need a drink."

Steve sighed. "You're making this harder than it has to be." He put both arms around Howard and pulled him tight against...

"You just made a dirty joke!" Howard was more surprised by that than by Steve's erection. He had, after all, imagined Steve with an erection. 

"I was a scrawny, scrappy, blue-eyed blond kid who didn't mind getting bruised, Howard. There were places I was _popular_." Steve smiled, a soft, sentimental smile. "Bucky kept introducing me to dames, but until Peggy... well, there wasn't one with balls enough to interest me."

"Somehow I feel as though I ought to wash your mouth out with soap."

"It's not dirty enough yet." Steve began undoing the buttons on Howard's shirt.

"Wait. You're not doing this because you feel you owe me, are you? Because you don't. You're a hero, the whole country owes you. I just happened to get there first. Finding you, I mean." Howard wanted to bite his tongue, but the words kept pouring out.

"I got that." Steve kept working on the buttons, taking his time. "I'm grateful, but I never did this with anyone unless I wanted them. I want you, Howard. You're good looking and you're funny, and I bet you know how to show a guy a good time. And I like you." Steve pushed a hand inside the open shirt. "Hey, chest hair. I like that, too. I never had any. That was my one big disappointment with the serum. Thought I'd come out with a nice chest rug, but no. Still as smooth as a baby's bottom."

Howard swallowed hard. "I like smooth chests." His hands came up all on their own. There were buttons at the neck and shoulder of Steve's tunic, cool and smooth under his fingers. The tunic flap opened. Steve didn't have an undershirt beneath. His nipples were drawn up tight. Howard's mouth gravitated to them naturally while his hands traced over the miles of hard muscle surrounding them. Steve made a soft noise and pulled Howard back. 

"Do you kiss?"

"Yeah. I kiss." Howard had to go up on his toes to meet Steve halfway. It was a slow, exploratory kiss, slow like everything else. He wondered if Steve was as nervous as he was. Probably. Fooling around with other men was risky. It wasn't like a few years ago, when you could go to a club in New York and meet men, dance, and laugh and even sometimes kiss, but you know, not in the street, don't scare the horses. Howard had been too young to do much, but he'd seen a lot. And later, when the tide of public opinion changed and the clubs shut their doors, he'd been glad that he liked women just as well as men. But he'd never met a woman who affected him the way Steve did. Steve was worth the risk of public censure. And in Europe... they weren't all priggish. Depended on the country and in general cities were more... cosmopolitan. 

It was a damn nice kiss, not shy, not pushy, hot and wet and with some tongue. Steve tasted of peppermint. He must have found some tooth powder while Howard was unconscious. He'd been expecting coma breath, but Steve was all fresh and sharp and tingly. After a few minutes of mutual exploration, neither of them had anything on above the waist and they were both breathing faster.

"What do you like to do, Steve? What do you want me to do?" 

"Like I said, I never minded bruises." Steve's fingers circled the pink marks Howard had sucked around his nipples. They were already fading. "Kinda liked 'em. You know, I'd look in the mirror later and remember where his hands had been, what it felt like. I'd feel the bruises under my clothes, a little stiff, a little sore for a couple days. I miss that, kinda. You could do whatever you like to me and I wouldn't have a mark to show for it in the morning."

"Yeah. Metabolism four times faster than normal." Howard had a thought. "How does that affect your refractory period?"

"My what... oh," Steve looked up from his own chest. "I can go again real quick." He grinned. "You're not the first scientist who wanted to experiment on me, you know."

"They didn't!"

Steve laughed. "Well, it wasn't fun, Howard! They were just trying to figure out everything. How much I needed to eat, how fast I healed, how quickly I recovered from exhaustion. They were very thorough."

Howard felt annoyed anyway. "They didn't need to be that thorough." It was obvious that Steve was far from a virgin, but still, he didn't like thinking about other people putting their hands on him, arousing Steve. He ran his fingers up the indentation of Steve's spine, buried between ridges of hard muscle; so warm and so alive.

"Think of it this way; someone had to get the new car to the showroom, but you're the one who gets the fun of a test drive."

"You had to really work at it to come up with an engineering metaphor, didn't you?" 

"Yes. Yes, I did. Did it help?"

"Maybe." 

"C'mon, you're gonna talk us out of the mood." Steve wrapped his arms around Howard and pulled him close. "It doesn't matter what happened before. This is just us, here and now."

"Yeah." Howard felt small and soft next to Steve. Well, not small and soft down _there_ , but in general. "Bed. Now." If they were horizontal, height wouldn't matter so much. "You on the bottom."

"You're pushy." But Steve said it affectionately, and he was already moving them to the bed. 

"Practical," Howard replied once they got there. He sat up. "Wait. Trousers and shoes off."

"Yes, sir." Steve was laughing at him, Howard could tell from the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "General Stark, sir!" Steve lay back down, completely naked and impressively erect. "The troops are ready for review, sir!"

"You salute well, soldier." Howard settled in place, determined to give Steve the best damn blow job of his life. Damn, Steve was big. Howard licked up from the base, pausing when he got to the retracted foreskin, to figure out how to take best advantage of it. He'd never encountered one before and he wondered if the rumors of the heightened sensitivity were true. He slid his tongue in between penis and foreskin. Steve quivered all over and made a high-pitched keening noise that he hadn't thought possible coming from a chest that size. Howard pulled back and looked up at Steve. "Too much?"

"No, no, it's just... new."

"New? No one's ever done that to you?" Howard was pleased, but a bit surprised. It seemed like an obvious thing to do.

"I mean, I was circumcised as a baby."

"The serum regrew it? I love science." Howard took hold of Steve's twitching cock, giving it a stroke or two to assure it he wasn't abandoning it. Who would? Eight inches of pure perfection. 

"And before you ask-- it didn't make me any bigger." Steve blushed; he actually blushed.

"Wow." Little guy Steve had been toting this around? Howard was so very turned on by the thought. But, less thought, more action. He returned to sucking and licking, paying special attention to the tip and the foreskin, and the vein that ran underneath... yeah, all right, he was greedy. It was all good. He stretched his mouth around the head and began working it, slow enough so he could pay attention to how Steve was responding. He noticed Steve fisting his hands in the coarse sheets, arching up on shoulders and hips while trembling like a badly adjusted engine. How sweet, Steve was trying not to choke him. Howard grinned as best he could around his mouthful and gave Steve a thumbs' up with the hand that wasn't playing with Steve's lovely heavy balls. And then he hummed, one of his best 'party tricks'.

Steve shouted something that sounded really filthy, grabbed Howard's head and held him tight. Howard couldn't do anything. It was... yeah, pretty damn great, being used by Captain America. Howard didn't let himself come, but it wasn't easy. After a couple minutes, the iron grip on his hair loosened. Howard pulled back, braced himself to either side of Steve's hips and just breathed. He knew he was grinning like an idiot, and his hair must be sticking up porcupine-style, and there was spunk in his 'stache and he was pretty sure he'd breathed some of it in. He was a mess. This was great.

Steve sat up and rubbed Howard's back. He smelled so good, and the sweat made him shine like an oiled Turkish wrestler. "Thanks, Howard. I really enjoyed that."

Howard rolled his eyes. "We have to work on your bedroom vocabulary." Howard was hoarse. His voice was wrecked. He hoped Steve wasn't going to apologize.

Steve laughed instead. "Want me to talk dirty to you?" He wrapped one hand around Howard's erection. "I know gutter talk, but... you're better than that."

"I'm richer than that. Doesn't mean I ..." The grip tightened at the same time Steve put his other arm around Howard's shoulders and neatly flipped him onto his back. "Oh, hey, caveman. I can work with that," Howard said.

"You are probably the second sexiest man I've ever met," Steve said. "You got any rubbers?"

Somehow Steve saying that in the most casual way was the dirtiest thing Howard had ever heard. "No, damn it. Wait, do we need one? You can't catch anything."

Steve went totally still for a moment and then blinked. "Huh. I just..." He ducked his head and mumbled, so Howard had to ask him to repeat himself. "I was using them with you know, V-girls. The Commandos kinda expected it, so..." Steve shrugged. "Wasn't bad, but I didn't want to risk leaving a kid behind."

Howard held it in for a few seconds before he laughed. "I'm never having any kids, Steve."

"You should." Steve leaned down to kiss Howard. "I like kids, Howard."

This was getting too strange. It almost sounded like Steve wanted to marry him; what a crazy idea. No, this was just... Steve liked him, that's all. "I'll buy you the moon, Steve, if you just fuck me now."

"I haven't done that with a guy since the serum. I'm not sure I wouldn't hurt you." Steve looked at Howard speculatively. "How about you ride me? That'd be safer. I don't want to bring you back to the same hospital tonight. It'd be embarrassing. You got any hand cream or vaseline?"

"You're killing me here." Howard whined.

Steve got up and went into the attached bathroom. Howard distracted himself from his aching cock by watching Steve walk away. He could write odes to that ass. If, you know, he could write odes. Maybe build something with Steve's shape. Hood ornament on a really sexy car. Companion piece for Rolls-Royce's fluttery lady. Yeah, give the Spirit of Ecstasy something to be ecstatic about. Howard leaned off the side of the bed to find paper and a pencil to jot down the idea.

"Taking notes?" Steve sounded amused.

"Yeah, I was..." Howard looked up and saw the round tin of petroleum jelly Steve was carrying. "Nothing." He tossed the paper and pencil aside. "You weren't kidding about your refractory period, were you?" 

"Well, it doesn't usually come up." Steve blushed when Howard laughed. "You know what I mean. I _can_ be ready again really quick, but only if I'm in the mood." He sat on the bed next to Howard and pried the lid off the tin.

"You're a young, healthy man, you're always in the mood, don't kid a kidder. Let me." He dredged his fingers through the goop. "You're not too sensitive right now, are you?"

"Maybe a little. Let me do you first. Umm, wait," Steve said as Howard turned to kneel on the bed, "you're gonna get vaseline all over the sheets."

"They're already dirty." Howard knelt and spread his legs. His cock bounced against his belly and drooled onto the increasingly rumpled sheets. "And getting dirtier the longer you make me wait." Really, Howard was usually much more suave and debonair, and planned seductions a lot better than this.

"All right, all right, hold your horses." 

The bed shifted, and then there was a warm, wet finger sliding down between his buttocks. Howard made an undignified noise and braced himself on one elbow, so he could reach back to squeeze his dick. "Yeah. Yeah, Steve. Get me ready for you." If Steve wouldn't talk, Howard would fill the spaces himself. "It's gonna be so good. I'm gonna make you see stars."

"And flying cars?" 

"You're laughing at me again." Howard wanted to be annoyed, but Steve was working a finger into him, careful, but big.

"With you, Howard. Hey, can I call you Howie?"

"Over my dead body." There were _lines_ one did not cross. 

"Ok, don't get your panties in a twist." Two fingers kept Howard from complaining about that remark. And really, there were times he _did_ like to wear silk panties... he'd picked up a few pair in Paris. They felt good. 

Three fingers.... Howard squirmed and squeezed himself, strangling his dick into temporary submission. "I will build you a fucking flying car if you get in me before I explode." 

"Yeah." Steve sounded a little shaky, which was a salve to Howard's pride. "You're... you know, really pretty, Howard." And then his ass was left empty. 

For a moment Howard was frustrated, and then he realized Steve was lying down on the bed beside him, big hands going up and down that big, beautiful cock, slicking it up for him. "Really pretty," Howard said as he turned to straddle Steve's hips. There followed an uncomfortable moment getting things lined up and angled for maximum benefit to both parties involved. After that events moved really, really fast. Howard's brain buzzed trying to keep up with all the incoming sensory information; pain, pleasure, heat, wetness, the sounds Steve made- oh, god, the sounds Steve made, big hands on his hips guiding him as he put his own hands on the hard, slick, smooth planes of Steve's chest and rode that big, beautiful cock hard. Steve's hair darkened with sweat, and his eyes darkened, too, swallowed up by pupil- Howard had missed seeing Steve's face when he sucked him off. 

It didn't last nearly long enough before Howard came and had to stop to catch his breath. But only for a moment, because Steve was still full and frustrated beneath him. Howard never left a partner unsatisfied. He rose up and lowered again, this time concentrating on Steve. Steve held out heroically for a few more minutes before shouting and surging upward so powerfully that Howard half expected to hit the ceiling. 

They fell back to the bed, which surprisingly didn't collapse. Maybe this hotel wasn't as poorly constructed as Howard had thought. He lay sprawled across Steve's chest, idly thinking that one of them ought to move before they were stuck together with dried come. But he didn't want to. He just wanted to lie there and memorize the past hour or so, file away all the sensory impressions for a rainy day when he was trapped in a board meeting or charity gala, or... "Wait." Howard's brain replayed an earlier comment. "What do you mean, _second_ -sexiest man you've ever met? Who was the first?" He lifted his head to glare at Steve, well, as much as he could, considering how bonelessly relaxed he was at the moment.

"Oh. Cary Grant. They told him he was too old to join the British Navy, so he donated his salary from a couple movies to war relief efforts. We met at one of those bond drives." Steve looked dreamy-eyed. "I always did love a British accent."

Howard huffed in annoyance. "I can do a British accent." He hung on as Steve laughed so hard his softened dick fell out of Howard. "Stop that before I get sea-sick."

"Sorry." Steve ran his hands soothingly over Howard's back. "I don't want you to change for me, Howard. I like you the way you are."

"Mmm, that's better." Howard sighed. "I suppose we should get up. The hot water's fairly reliable in the shower."

"Yeah." Steve slapped Howard on the ass. "Come on. Last one in's a rotten egg." Steve rolled Howard off and got up, grinning.

***

The shower ran out of hot water. But they didn't mind. Eventually they had to give up and get dressed because Steve's stomach was growling. "Sorry," Howard said. "I forgot, you haven't eaten anything since you woke up, have you?"

"Oh, no, I ate. The hospital fed me while they were filling me in on everything. But that was a few hours ago." Steve patted his male nurse's tunic on the abdomen. "Metabolism, you know."

"We can go out, but not with you in those clothes. You look like a cover from Physique magazine." Howard opened the closet and pulled out Steve's duffle bag. He opened it, and coughed at the musty smell that arose. "Ok, that's not going to work. I'd lend you a suit, but then you'd get arrested for indecent exposure. I'll call room service."

"Anything but Spam," Steve said. "The army fed it to me until it was coming out my ears." He went over to the bed and began gathering the sheets. "We need to get rid of this before anyone sees it."

Or smells it, Howard thought. "Yeah. I've got an idea. Just put it all in the shower stall." He opened his suitcase and got out a bottle of lighter fluid.

***

Housekeeping came by with fresh linens and extra towels after Howard informed them of the unfortunate accident with his cigar and an attempt to refill his Zippo. The maid's scowl at being presented with the artfully scorched bundle of cloth vanished when Howard tipped her with a fifty. "Sorry, honey, I don't have anything smaller. Keep the change."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark!" 

Steve gave Howard a mildly reproachful look after the maid finished making up the bed and left, still smiling broadly.

"What's wrong?" Howard said. "The hotel will put the damages on the bill. The maid didn't believe me, but she didn't care, either. No harm, no foul."

"You called her 'honey'." Steve's frown deepened. 

"Oh. That's a problem? You know, it doesn't mean anything. Just being friendly. I appreciate the little people. Or are you annoyed because I didn't call you any pet names, honeylamb?"

"Honeylamb?" Steve's eyebrows went up to his hairline. 

"Sugarpuss?" Howard stalked Steve, grinning. "Sweetcheeks?"

Steve blushed. "Steve is good, Howard. Let's stick to Steve."

"Steve. Yeah, that works. Ok, the room service menu---" Howard leafed through the thin booklet. "Bogus beef burgers, ersatz chicken cutlets, pseudo shrimp cocktail, mock mock turtle soup, apple pie a la Ritz crackers... any of that sound edible?"

"Yes. And a coke float with chocolate syrup." Steve picked up his shield from the far wall and ran his fingers around it, making it hum. 

"The growing boy special. Got it." Howard got on the phone and placed the order, with a high tip added for promptness.

***

Howard had coffee and a near-Reuben sandwich. Then he sat and watched in awe as Steve methodically cleared the rest of the plates. It had taken two busboys and three carts to carry it all. "The inside of your stomach must lead to another dimension," Howard said when Steve reached the dessert stage, still going strong.

"I can go without eating for days if I have to," Steve said calmly before forking up a hunk of lemon meringue pie. "But then I gotta catch up."

"Yeah." And Steve had been on liquids for months, so he had a lot of catching up to do. "Another float?"

"Sure."

Howard opened another coke and scooped more ice cream from the container nestled in an ice bucket. "I really gotta take you to a Friday night all-you-can-eat fish fry, just to show people how it's done."

***

"How are you doing?" Howard watched Steve neatly pile up the last of the empty dishes on the service cart.

"Good." Steve followed that up with a yawn. 

"Let me guess, you can do without sleep for days, but then you gotta catch up."

Steve shrugged. "I just need a few hours. Do you have an alarm clock I can borrow?"

"An alarm clock?"

"I tend to oversleep when I've eaten that much."

"The war is over, you don't need to worry about missing reveille." But Howard wound up the alarm clock he'd been using to remind him when visiting hours begin when the nurses had still been picky about it. "Here you go. Listen, I'm going to go out and round up some civvies for you. Unless you want your uniform cleaned and pressed to impress the general?"

"Ummm, well..." Steve took the alarm clock and began setting it. "I don't know..."

"Right. I'll do both." Howard picked up the duffel bag and turned off the main light, leaving one small lamp lit. He hadn't bothered to get a room with a view, so there was no window to admit any light from outside. "Should be some shops still open. Sleep well."

"mmm hmmm." Steve pulled off his borrowed shoes, folded back the fresh mint-green chenille cover and got between the sheets. Howard would have sworn he was unconscious the moment his head hit the pillow.

***

It took longer than Howard had anticipated to find anything close to Steve's size that didn't look as if the wearer should be shoveling out the barn. He couldn't even get dress socks to fit and wound up with some hideous brown work socks with red and white heels and toes. Shirts weren't much better. Anything that would fit his shoulders would drape around his waist like a tent. Trousers- if they wouldn't pinch his thighs, they'd sag off his ass. Howard's tailor was going to be in ecstasies when he got the order to clothe Steve from the skin out.

The packages were awkward, but Howard managed to get into the hotel room without making too much noise. Steve had looked really tired. He supposed a coma didn't count as sleep. He put everything down carefully and then tip-toed over to Steve. Captain America looked like a boy when he slept, innocent, pure... which... well, Howard could document evidence to the contrary with his happily bruised ass. But still, he looked young, and very tired. Howard glanced at the alarm clock and frowned. It was set to go off in less than an hour. Steve must have been so tired he set it wrong. A few more hours would do him a world of good. Howard picked up the clock and reset it.

And as long as Steve was sleeping, might as well take advantage. Howard loved a cuddle. He made sure the door was locked before he changed into silk pajamas and slid under the sheets next to Steve, who muttered and shifted, throwing one heavy arm over Howard's waist before he stilled again. Howard smiled and closed his eyes. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in months, either.

***

"BUUUUZZZZZZ" Howard reached out blindly, instinctively, to knock the alarm clock to the floor, but he slammed up against a solid, warm, brick wall. The brick wall grabbed his shoulders and shoved him back against the sheets. The clock kept shrilling.

"Howard! Why did you do that?" Steve was sitting up in bed, flushed as red as a brick across his cheeks. His eyes were even bluer by contrast. He looked furiously angry, and mortified at the same time. He grabbed the sheets and pulled hard.

Howard tumbled backwards. "What? What did I..." He felt at the tangled sheets and looked down. The white linen was wet and yellow and blood warm, soaked with fresh urine. The scent rose, rich and tangy. There was a lot of it. There were even puddles. Howard's pajama trousers were soaked from the knees down. He looked up at Steve. The orderly's tunic was ... well, it was obvious where all that piss had originated. Howard tried really hard not to look at Steve's crotch, but there it was, outlined in clinging damp detail. And the smell. Howard didn't understand it, but that smell just...it was so _dirty_ and so _wrong_ , but all he could think was that he'd like to suck Steve off right now, right through the pissed trousers. He licked his lips and swallowed the saliva that collected in his mouth at the thought. 

"You reset the clock!" Steve picked it up and crushed it in one hand. It let out a last strangled cheep before it crumpled. "Did you think it would be funny? Did you want to see Captain America wet the bed like a little boy? You _knew_ about my metabolism!"

"God, no. Steve. I didn't..." Howard sat up, pulling the sheets up over his waist to cover his totally inappropriate erection. He hadn't known about this twist in his sexuality, and this was an incredibly inconvenient time for it to pop up. Emerge. Expose itself. Hell. "I didn't think of that! I just... you were tired. I thought you'd made a mistake. I only wanted to let you sleep!"

"This is embarrassing," Steve said after staring at Howard, apparently judging his sincerity. Steve sounded slightly less angry, which was good, but slightly more humiliated, which was bad. Of course it was bad. Humiliating Captain America was a low-down, dirty trick. Not sexy in the least.

"Embarrassing. Right." Howard swallowed again and cleared his throat. He felt hot, and it wasn't just because pissy silk gives off a weird exotic smell. Chemical interactions between acid and the proteins of caterpillar cocoons should not be arousing. A national hero and icon dripping warm piss onto a crappy chenille bedspread should not make Howard want to hump Steve's leg like a poorly trained dog. "Yeah, well, you know, it's all my fault. Blame me. We probably should strip the bed. Turn the mattress. Take showers. Have sex... before the shower." Did he say that? Possibly he did.

"What?" Steve's expression was now one of total confusion. "Howard! Are you still drunk?"

"No. That just slipped out." 

"We're covered in piss." Steve tugged at the waistband of his trousers. 

"Uh huh. It's not the worst thing either of us have been covered in."

"That's true." Steve sighed. "Howard, are you trying to tell me something?"

"Maybe?" Howard took a deep breath for courage, and then pushed the sheets down, showing the strain his pajamas were experiencing. "This seems to have happened. And it's not morning wood."

"I knew a guy who liked feet," Steve said thoughtfully. "Smelly feet. It was weird, but he was nice. I got used to it. And he was willing to do things that I liked, so it was only fair."

"I didn't know I liked this. I swear. I'm not even sure exactly what I want to do, just that I want to do it with you."

"Huh." Steve glanced down at the bed. "This really gets you excited?"

"It really, really does."

"Well, I suppose this mattress is already ruined." Steve smiled at Howard.

Howard grinned. "Be a shame to waste it."

Steve moved close to kiss him, pressing close and rubbing their wet clothing together. "But next time, we put a tarp on the mattress."

"Sure." Howard kissed back. "Oh, wait. Plastics! They're the coming thing- let me just make a note..." He started to reach for paper and pencil.

Steve growled and shoved Howard onto his back. "Don't piss me off, Howard."

Howard was still laughing when he came a few minutes later.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU ignores the movie canon version of Steve's discovery. That didn't match the comics canon version, so why can't I add another?
> 
> Originally this was intended to be a Plot? What Plot? focusing on Howard causing Steve to wet the bed & Howard finding it sexy. While chatting with Blakefancier I had foolishly claimed that I could figure out a way to do it where both of them would be sympathetic, equals, & not wildly out of character. The foolish part was that I thought I could do it in a few hours. But it wanted SO MUCH lead up and figuring out it's taken me more than a week.
> 
> AND I KNOW people will say the story should continue. But it's not going to happen. At least not right now.


End file.
